Sparkfactor Design
| Private | |
| Industry |
Mechanical Engineering Industrial Design |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California, USA |
Key people |
Claudia Truesdell Robert Garett Mike Smith |
Number of employees | 20 (2006) |
| Website | www.sparkfactordesign.com/ |
Sparkfactor Design is a design and consulting firm founded in Palo Alto, California, in 2001. They provide engineering design services for consumer products, consumer electronics, medical equipment, and other industries.
History and work
Sparkfactor Design was started in 2001 by Claudia Truesdell, Robert Garrett, and Mike Smith. Claudia Truesdell and Robert Garrett were both graduates of the Stanford Graduate School of Product Design,[1] while Mike Smith was an industrial designer from GVO.
The firm employs approximately 20 people in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design. Inc Magazine included Sparkfactor in their 2007 list of top 100 consulting companies in the USA[2] and in the 2008 list in the top 20 engineering companies in the USA.[3] Sparkfactor was also included in the San Francisco Business Times list of top 50 private companies in the San Francisco Bay Area for 2007.[4] and in the 2008 top 50 list.
Sparkfactor has partnered with many product-oriented companies to help design more than 100 consumer electronic products. In total these products have had sales of over 150 million units.
Notable products
- Mechanical Engineering for the first Apple Wireless Mouse[5] and other mice, the first Apple iPod and follow-on iPods and other MP3 players, the first Apple Mac mini and follow-on Mac minis. These products have won many design awards including D&AD "Gold" for Product Design and "Silver" for Product For Work, Plastics Industry Consumer Product Design of the Year Award and Red Dot Product design of the year awards.
- Complete ME and ID design for the Dash Navigation Dash Express Product: which was named by CNET and LAPTOP "Best of CES 2007" for Car Tech and GPS.
- Complete ME and ID design for the Meraki Networks outdoor product.
- Design and manufacturing of the Apple Design Awards,[6][7] and the Apple change tray used in all Apple Stores in Japan.
References
- ↑ Stanford Product Design Alumni
- ↑ Inc magazine top 100 consulting companies
- ↑ Inc magazine top 20 engineering companies
- ↑ top 50
- ↑ Cult of mac interview with Sparkfactor Design
- ↑ Menkentos does cat scan of Apple Award Menkentosj Retrieved on 2007-05-30
- ↑ CNet article about 2012 Apple design award winners Retrieved on 2007-05-30